Chapter 3 Chapter Overview & Learning Objectives

Political Thought, Philosophy, and Ideology

Chapter Overview

  • Learning Objectives
  • Introduction
  • What Is Political Philosophy?
  • The History of Political Thought
  • Ideology
    • The Left-Right Spectrum
  • Liberal Thought
    • Neoliberalism
  • Socialism
  • Nationalism
  • Other Systems of Thought
    • Feminism
    • Post-Colonialism
    • Environmentalism
    • Fascism
    • Anarchism
    • Political Islam
    • Confucian Political Thought
  • The Relevance of Ideas
  • Conclusion
  • Self-Assessment Questions
  • Weblinks
  • Further Reading
  • Film and Video Clips

Learning Objectives

This chapter will help you to

  • appreciate the importance and place of political philosophy and ideology in the study of politics;
  • explain the relationship between theory and reality in political studies;
  • understand political philosophy as an ongoing dialogue of ideas across the centuries;
  • identify the major political ideologies and differentiate between them; and
  • recognize the most important political philosophers of the past two and a half millennia.
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